Author Archives: Giles Keeble

Giles Keeble started as a rep (account man) at JWT before moving to BMP. There Stanley Pollitt told him that JWT’s Stephen King had wanted him to become a planner. John Webster encouraged him to become a writer but after a number of years Giles moved to French Gold Abbott and, for a while, did become a planner of sorts.
Returning to writing he went to David Abbott’s new agency AMV followed by WCRS and was then ECD of Leo Burnett for six years. He then returned to AMV before moving to Publicis and then Lowe in Hong Kong at the inception of the ‘World’s Local Bank’ campaign for HSBC. He now works as a writer and strategist as well as running advertising courses for senior clients.

Some years ago, I was creative director of BMW Australia – from the UK. It was the first step in the WCRS plan for global expansion that resulted in the take-over of (or merger with) The Ball Partnership. On that ...

I have written about AI before, wondering whether ads produced by AI might be as good as, if not better than, many of the ads we see on our screens produced by humans. Well, Lexus and their agencies have now ...

“Nobody knows anything”- the late William Goldman’s famous words about the movie business. Does that also apply to advertising? Is advertising an art or a science? Of course, it’s a bit of both. As in science, you need to ask ...

November 1, 2018Comments Off on Giles Keeble: but don’t put your daughter into advertising Mrs Worthington…

I am sometimes asked by friends if I will talk to their children about a job in advertising. I assume this is because they do not want to be doctors, teachers, lawyers or go into the City, and they think ...

I came across an article in The New Yorker about how the ‘Math Men’ with their algorithms have replaced the ’Mad Men’ as the kingpins of ad agencies. This is because they can sell ‘access to the realtime flow of ...

May 8, 2018Comments Off on Giles Keeble: why WPP-style teamwork is so difficult and questioning the score just isn’t cricket

The events at WPP have raised questions about global networks, not just because of Facebook and Google but also clients going in-house or cherry picking agencies on a job by job basis. I always thought the desire for an advertising ...

April 17, 2018Comments Off on Giles Keeble: art for ads’ sake, why we need a charity comparison site, uneasy about algorithms

I have recently read two books on art. In one, William Gompertz suggests that all education should adopt the approach of art schools, which is to learn how to question, not simply to learn to regurgitate for exams. Learning to ...

January 8, 2018Comments Off on Giles Keeble: most ads have always been dire, digital means they’re dire in different ways

I was talking to a friend recently who told me he had met Sir Martin Sorrell at a gathering and told him that WPP was selling stuff that nobody liked – ads. I’ve been looking for clear data on this ...

John Lewis Partnership advertising this Christmas is in the land of make-believe (and why not?), with the ad for John Lewis featuring an imaginary monster and for Waitrose with a pub in the middle of nowhere filled with people, including ...